Adnan Z. Amin, IRENA’s Director-General is looking forward to 2012 – the International Year of Sustainable Energy for All. He is confident that IRENA – which he describes as “the only international agency dedicated to the promotion of renewable energy” – will play a central and crucial part in this event, after it strengthened its structure and capabilities during 2011.
Internally, IRENA has indeed grown. New staff appointments have been made; REmember, the new delegate’s area, is taking shape and promises to be an effective and innovative tool; and IRENA’s new Innovation and Technology Centre (IITC) in Bonn (Germany) is now fully operational.
“Our participation in the UN Secretary-General’s High Level Group recognises our potential, but it will be our activities and influence during the year that will cement IRENA’s position at the core of this all-important global agenda,” says Amin.
In June IRENA will also play a central role as special advisor at the 2012 Rio+20 Conference. “Much can be achieved at this event and we must ensure that our participation is strong, coordinated and effective,” adds Amin.
Focus on innovation and technology
The official opening of IRENA’s IITC in Bonn on 7 October brought a message to the global community that “renewable energy has come of age” says IRENA’s Director-General.
After paying tribute to the German government for their support of IRENA and the financial contribution that makes the work of the IITC possible, Mr. Amin added: “We have at hand the means to provide effective solutions, the technology that can transform the path to sustainability and, with the establishment of IRENA, an international framework that can help to bring together all those who seek to contribute to effective solutions.”
While IRENA is headquartered in Abu Dhabi (United Arab Emirates), the new IITC Bonn office will be responsible for work on technology development and deployment support, and renewables competitiveness and markets.
Working hard
IRENA has also been pushing forward the agenda for the deployment of renewable energy at several important international workshops in recent months, one of which (Renewables – Competitiveness and Innovation) took place during the inauguration of the new IITC. Amin opened the workshop by saying that he hoped that its findings would assist in finalising IRENA’s upcoming work programme.
Many distinguished scientists, industry representatives and government official took part in the workshop which featured sessions on the Economics of Renewables, focusing on competitiveness, costs and benefits; Costs of Systems Integration and Benefits of Renewables; Innovation for Accelerated Development; Upcoming Developments in Renewables; and concluded with a discussion of the IITC Roadmap.
Concluding remarks from the workshop suggested that IRENA could be the leading global think tank on both renewables and energy efficiency; that it was critical that IRENA continue to serve as an objective source of information in its work, both as a global forum for work on innovative policy, frameworks and innovative technologies, and as a partner with individual countries; and that the Agency should continue to stress the importance of encouraging the use of renewable energy to meet the needs of the energy poor.
Later in October, another workshop took place in Sydney (Australia), held in partnership with the government of Australia and the World Bank, to address the challenges and opportunities for accelerating the deployment of renewable energy systems in the Pacific region.
In November, a Multilateral Solar and Wind Working Group meeting was held in Berlin (Germany) included the presentation of an initial prototype of the Global Atlas on Wind and Solar Energy. This prototype has since been refined to better represent user data needs and integrate additional tools and data sets, which were presented at the IRENA Assembly in January.
The Berlin meeting also discussed progress on the Working Group’s current projects, including updates on current capacity-building efforts; initiated new projects, including the launch of a new activity to analyse economic value along the wind and solar value chain; and made preparations for the third Clean Energy Ministerial (CEM3) taking place in London on 25-26 April 2012, where an enhanced prototype of the Solar Atlas will be presented.
At the end of November, IRENA also hosted an event in Bangalore (India) looking at ways in which governments, financiers and entrepreneurs can work together to enable the growth of renewable energy entrepreneurship to grow and the creation of rural renewable energy markets were explored in a two-day practitioners’ meeting hosted by IRENA. The meeting provided a platform for sharing lessons and best practices for promoting small and growing enterprises that provide renewable energy services for households, villages and communities.
Key partnerships
An important partnership between IRENA and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) was announced in 2011. Under the partnership, the two organisations will jointly implement various activities related to the assessment of renewable energy potentials.
“This partnership between WMO and IRENA is symbolic of the extensive synergies developed over the last decade between the meteorological and climate community and the renewable energy community to jointly address the challenge of climate change,” explains WMO’s Secretary-General, Michel Jarraud.
Another partnership was forged in 2001 between IRENA and ECOWAS Regional Centre for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency (ECREEE) to exchange knowledge and information on capacity building and renewable energy policy, assess renewable energy potential in West Africa, and conduct other joint activities between the two organisations promoting the deployment of renewable energy.
Lastly, IRENA has announced that it will work with the NREL to produce an analysis of innovation policies in a group of OECD countries and emerging economies. The project will focus on the design of criteria for conducive policy frameworks that reduce cost and accelerate innovation, with a particular emphasis on success/failure factors based on past experience with renewables, and try to extract general policy design guidelines covering the full technology innovation chain, from basic science to commercial deployment.
At the end of November, IRENA linked forces with NREL to hold a workshop aimed at identifying the best practices experiences of IRENA Members and its partner organisations and discuss the best way to highlight and disseminate these practices. Valuable inputs gathered at the meeting will feed into the Best Practices Survey Report that will be presented to IRENA Members for discussion on the Technology Cooperation activity.
Finally, a month after the IITC opened its doors, IRENA launched its Renewable Energy Country Profiles on Africa as part of the events surrounding the 17th Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC (COP17) in Durban (South Africa). According to the Agency, the profiles were widely distributed and well received by COP17’s influential international delegates.
The 108-page colour publication features the latest available facts, statistics and information from a vast array of sources, combined with IRENA analysis, to give a succinct, comprehensive and up-to-date picture of the situation of renewable energy including energy supply, power capacity, energy access, policies, targets, investment climate, projects and endowment in renewable energy resources.
Each country has its own section featuring maps, graphs, demographic information, a national energy profile, and key energy policies that promoted renewable energy.
IRENA has already published Renewable Energy Country Profiles on the Pacific. In 2012 the series will be extended to cover Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean.
Second Assembly
IRENA’s second Assembly took place last week in Abu Dhabi. The successful conclusion of the Second Assembly of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) today signals a new era for the Agency and recognition of the strategic importance of its mandate – to increase the worldwide adoption and deployment of renewable energy.
“I believe the Second Assembly shows that IRENA is now emerging onto the world stage as an operational intergovernmental organisation ready to generate change,” said Amin.
In a closing address UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told nearly 1,000 delegates from 137 countries, the European Union and 57 organisations, that the success of the Assembly on the eve of the launch of the International Year of Sustainable Energy for All (SE4All) marked an auspicious start to this important initiative.
“Renewable energy is a central element in meeting the Millennium Development Goals related to poverty alleviation, environmental sustainable development and health,” he added. “Sustainability cannot be tackled by isolated action. IRENA has provided much-needed political impetus and direction to our efforts.”
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